When an incoming tourist agency meet a wine expert

Archives pour la catégorie : Glossary

Grape yellow disease (or flavescence dorée) is from North America. That’s a recent plague in southern France that causes devastation that could become as big a problem as Phylloxera. Since 1987, its mandatory in France to fight against that disease, … Lire la Suite →

The work of the vine is very demanding, and requires much attention to the winemaker to use at his best all the means given by mother nature to have the nicest harvest. It is known that the climatic characteristics influence … Lire la Suite →

Nature is a system in perpetual interaction, where accumulations of ecosystems result from numerous parameters. So in continental Europe, the conditions of production are not the same as in tropical Africa or in the Rocky Mountains. By returning this principle … Lire la Suite →

The separate valleys, the difficult communications, the strong peculiarities of the local market, the unchanged inheritances, the improvements bequeathed from previous generations: all these parameters are at the origin of the notion of Terroir. Every region and micro-region had a … Lire la Suite →

First, to make sure enough vapor is present to get a strong sense of the wine’s smell, use a glass shape that can concentrate the molecules, filled only one-third full or less to allow space for the vapors to be … Lire la Suite →

This idea of sight affecting flavor is not hard to grasp if one thinks of some food which looks unappetizing, but then tastes very good. The reverse is also true. How often is an item selected from a cafeteria line … Lire la Suite →

While there may be a vast array of aroma categories, generally only four tastes have historically been considered: bitter, salty, sour, and sweet. There really is no precise definition of "basic taste"; these four only differentiate and describe common taste … Lire la Suite →

Sulfites exist in nature and are also naturally contained in or even added to preserve a very long list of many common foods, including wine, cheese, yogurt and other processed dairy, bread and baked goods, tortillas, dried fruits, dried spices, … Lire la Suite →

The nose can sometimes even beat the eyes in the race for setting up the tasting expectations. An aroma can carry from one room to another, beyond the line of sight. Of the five senses, smell is the most acute, … Lire la Suite →

Methods used to break up the cake made of skins, pips, stalks…and insure more color extraction include punching down by hand several times a day, pumping-over the juice to the top of the cake using a must pump.

Wooden barrels allow a degree of oxidation that can mellow a wine and enabled it to evolve well in the future, acting on the characteristic of tannin and its organisation : polymerisation. Some loss occurs through evaporation and wine in … Lire la Suite →